Monday, April 8, 2013

I love taking the kids to art galleries so I was really excited to share with them one of my favourite art spaces, the Heidi Museum of Modern Art. But I'm going to keep it real for you tonight and admit that our trip was a bit of a shemozzle.

We went to see an exhibition of Fiona Hall's work entitled 'Big Game Hunting'… 'a macabre yet wondrous wunderkammer of trophy-style sculptures of endangered species from the United Nations 'Red List', rendered in military camouflage and embellished with the detritus of contemporary culture'. Awesome but very enticingly tactile and at child height… eek I'm sorry Fiona but Minty may or may not have walked over your skin rug masterpiece in her dirty shoes… a barrier might have been helpful (just saying). I spent the entire time reigning Turi back with an iron grip and sharply whispering 'too close' and 'remember NO touching'.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it is entirely possible to have an extremely positive experience taking small kids to Heidi. I had just become complacent after having a series of wonderful trips to other art exhibitions, so I broke my cardinal rules for successful gallery visits with kids (more on this tomorrow). We drove for over two hours without stopping to get there and the only food I had packed was six apples… rookie mistakes!

We did enjoy exploring the gorgeous kitchen garden and the sculpture garden. We even attempted to eat a delicious(ly expensive) cupcake at the cafe, sadly cut short by an epic Turi meltdown because he thought I might (god forbid) make him share the said cupcake.

Minty (much to my devastation) declared the visit 'not fun'. I think we'll have to try Heidi again but next time I'll be more prepared!

Watching yarn bombing in action.

At random intervals Turi will spontaneously raise his arms in the air to demonstrate how big he is getting!